Baby

I’m not the one who enjoys scuttling around on my hands and knees, driving cars around an invisible track or fighting off pretend pirates.

Imaginary play is NOT my strength.

And sometimes, I feel guilty about that.

I want to be the mom crawling around the park, pretending to be a crime-fighting dinosaur named Nora. The mom who spends hours acting out intricate storylines about robots and aliens, running around the house in costumes as we dodge lava pits and trolls. The mom who doesn’t get bored after a couple minutes of playing with Lego people.

I want to be that “uber fun mom” with endless energy and creative passion for free play. I want to give my kids that experience.

I haven’t heard a full sermon in over half a year now. The messages are fragmented: bits here and there, snatches of verses and sentences caught and quickly forgotten as I scurry out to quiet a hungry babe. I sit in the nursery, rocking and burping. Sometimes the sermon plays through the speaker, sometimes it doesn’t. Most often us moms are all too distracted by feeds and naps and foul-smelling diapers to hear the words anyway.

Come to me all who labour and are heavy laden.The invitation presses against my soul. To come and lay down my aches and my insecurities, my doubts and my fears, and to simply sit in His presence. To stop striving and simply worship.

This isn’t the first time it’s happened either. It seems to be that when the milk comes in my babies immediately turn up their tiny noses and deem one side to be of “sub-par quality.” The quintessential picky-eaters from birth.

When my daughter was born, she struggled to stay latched. Those first few days were anxiety-riddled as her weight decreased and her diapers dried up. It didn’t matter that I had a full and healthy milk-supply. It didn’t matter if I used a nipple shield. One side was simply boob-non-grata.

These are the early days. The nights when the baby fusses and you awake every half-hour, bleary-eyed and exhausted. When you’re no longer able to string cognizant sentences together and your nightshirt smells like spit-up and baby lotion.

You’re tired. Oh-so-tired.

If you could wish these nights away, you would. They’re exhausting and mind-numbing: this endless cycle of sleeping, eating and changing.

And yet, you find yourself inexplicably passing up moments of sleep to stop and marvel at this new child in your arms. You kiss the top of their downy head and soak in the syrupy smell of milk and baby. You watch them sleep with wonder.

The little one’s breath comes soft and quick after months spent immersed within. The squeaks and gurgles, murmurs and bubbles from within the bassinet make for a noisy roommate. But when they quiet, you peek your face over the edge of her bed. Your hand hovers over her chest, feeling the gentle rise and fall of new life. For now, life slows.

Yes, these weeks and months are draining. But through these longest of nights, we hear the never-ending whispers of a mother’s love.